Minutes – Jul. 28, 2016

BERKSHIRE HILLS REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT

Great Barrington               Stockbridge         West Stockbridge

SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEETING

Du Bois Regional Middle School – Library

July 28, 2016 – 7:00 p.m.

Present:

School Committee:    S. Bannon, R. Bradway,  A. Potter, J. St. Peter, W. Fields,  K. Piasecki, C. Shelton, F. Clark, R. Dohoney,

Administration:          P. Dillon, S. Harrison

Staff/Public:               M. Berle, S. Soule, Kate Burdsall

Absent:   D.Weston, B. Doren, M. Young

List of Documents Distributed:

BHRSD School Committee 12-05-15 minutes; BHRSD School Committee 02-25-16 minutes; BHRSD School Committee 05-05-16 minutes; BHRSD School Committee 05-19-16 minutes;

September 17, 2015 revised agenda; July 28, 2016 Pers. Report; Letter from State; Memo Re 1st day of school; Revision- Policy JICFB- BHRSD Bullying Policy; Revision- Policy JKAA- Physical Restraint of Students

RECORDER NOTE: Meeting being transcribed after the fact from recording provided by CTSB. Length of meeting: 1hr 18min

CALL TO ORDER

Chairman Steve Bannon called the meeting to order @ 7:00pm

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 

The listing of agenda items are those reasonably anticipated by the chair, which may be discussed at the meeting. Not all items listed may in fact be discussed, and other items not listed may be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by law. This meeting is being recorded by CTSB, Committee Recorder, members of the public with prior Chair permission and will be broadcast at a later date. Minutes will be transcribed and made public, as well as added to our website, www.bhrsd.org once approved.

MINUTES –

BHRSD School Committee minutes for:

12-10-2015; 02-25-2016; 05-05-2016; 05-19-2016 presented by S.Bannon for Committee approval

Motion to approve minutes: F.Clark    Seconded:  C.Shelton    Approved: Unanimous

TREASURER’S REPORT  -None

SUPERINTENDENT’S REPORT– None

GOOD NEWS ITEM(S)

Monterey Academy – At the Children’s Study Home Presentation

Dr. Diane Dillon, Head of School

Eliza Crescentini, Executive Director

Dr. Diane Dillon:

Researched what educational services gaps there were locally and beyond; specifically identified a gap in services for middle school girls struggling with anxiety, depression, ADHD, post-traumatic stress and other issues and that interfering with academics. Middle school is a particularly vulnerable time for all students but especially for girls. Looked to see how to best incorporate health and wellness into all aspects of a program. Canyon Ranch Institute will be partnering with them to embed best practices around health and wellness into the curriculum and enrichment activities. Plan is to start w/ 6 residential students and 6 day students.

K.Burdsall: A second school being proposed; 1st school on Millpond Berkshire campus is k-8 SPED private special education school and will work with them quite a bit and probably make referrals to and have partnerships with; Monterey Academy is a private school and not going to be a private special education school. Likely to have less of a relationship with them for this school because it won’t be a DESE approved.

R.Dohoney made motion that Committee acknowledge the Monterey Academy opening and operating in our District.   Seconded:W.Fields   Approved: Unanimously

Muddy Brook Elementary School (MBE)

1. Berle, Principal:

Summer Project connection with both project connection & integrated preschool programs running. Observed for the last week and a half and programming is outstanding. kids are having a great time, staff are better trained than ever. Partnership with Tate Behavioral during the school year with an enhanced grant there’s 2 behavioral consultants helping w/project connection, 2 volunteers from the Brien Center working in a pro-social way. This Week: United way came for their grant review, Berkshire Eagle in to look at a Berkshire Museum partnership- Both were excited. 27 volunteers from the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires helping with the literacy

program. The community partnerships are wonderfully expanding. Staff members are part of the tutoring through Title 1 Funding.

Fully staffed for Fall. EK/K: 45 students in kindergarten which calls for 3 classes not 4, position not filled. Very significant needs in our EK, so the extra kindergarten para (two now) in the early k room with  19 students. That class ballooned a bit and it’s a good use of the resource.  2nd grade: 16 or 17 in all the 2nd grade classes – glad to not have lost a staff position.  All others: 15 is lowest class size, 17/18/19 in quite a few places.

SUMMER UPDATES:

Kate Burdsall: 4 things going on w/ SPED students over summer & all based on regression of previously learned skills. All work being done is focused on IEP goals. 1) Tutoring for about 45 students provided by 16 tutors. 2) Related services: speech-language, occupational therapy, and physical therapy; served about 22 students. 3) PK program: Monday-Thursdays 10am – 1pm w/ 10 students, 1 lead teacher, several paras. Focus on social skills, independence, cooperative play, and IEP goals. 4) Shared life skills program w/ Southern Berkshire & Lenox.  18 kids in that program this year: 3 lead teachers, many paraprofessionals and they are out in the community almost daily working on pre-vocational/ vocational skills, community integration, music, the environment, independent living skills, and recreation.

Steve Soule: Standard summer. Great summer programs going on but it does interfere with cleaning and makes more challenging. Custodial staff have to work a little harder than in summers past to ensure the building’s get all done for Fall. Maintenance perspective, trying to catch up on broken things: holes in walls, and furniture, etc. and make repairs. Mowing has slowed down significantly. Stadium field is in pretty good form- fertilize that in the late spring & has strong root structure. Don’t have the budget to fertilize the entire campus & looks pretty

brown from Rt7. We had a well problem, it seems to be on a six year cycle that we have a problem with the well shutting down. We fixed the well that day an avoided a full system shutdown.

P.Dillon: In June the district was approved to be one of 50 statewide districts to be part of a budget analysis and resource allocation pilot. He submitted an application with Sharon and Joshua and was accepted. Two-year pilot project working with the State Department of  Education the District Management Council to develop and refine tools and resources, to look at budgeting, decision making, and how we allocate people & time, and support student achievement. Aligns w/ our re-imagination work to refine our budget process. Will help

meet the goal of moving past planning fiscally to a multi-year budget plan.

MMRHS 180 day requirement– see memo attached.

Problem: 9th graders coming to school one day before all others was not allowing for 180 school-day requirement for 10 & 11 grades.

Solution: 9th graders have a full day, allowing Admin to introduce the school, and rest of school comes in for a half-day afternoon. This allows for meeting the 180 school-day state requirement for grades 10 & 11.

Bumping the whole schedule up a day for students takes away the only PD day all the teachers and paraprofessionals are together. Doesn’t have to be a permanent solution, just this one year and a better solution can be found for future years. Committee consensus to preserves the full day of school that is for Freshman only. Short on time now.

Marianne Young to report in September on how the day went.

R.Dohoney made a motion to approve the proposal,    Seconded: A.Potter   Passed: 5 Yay / 2 Nay, Abstention: R.Bradway (was not present for discussion)

UPDATES:

• Berkshire County Task Force- None
• Southern Berkshire Shared Services Project (SBSSP)Six South County superintendents met in in late June to do technology audit. Met with Joshua Shaw around doing technology audit for the other districts; Farmington River, Richmond, Lenox, Southern Berkshire, and Berkshire Hills Regional(Lee used him for their audit last year) will proceed with doing that audit. Using grant and private donation monies for Shared Services. Lots professional development work within the 6 South County districts and countywide. Rich professional development opportunities on Election Day (a shared day) and follow-up days. List of those opportunities are being developed with the superintendent’s roundtable, Southern Berkshire, Shared Services Group and the two principal groups (elementary and center school principal groups).

• Discussions with Shaker Mountain, Lee & Farmington River: Shaker Mountain School Union- been talking to them before and all thru summer & meeting with the Hancock School Chairman tomorrow morning and then in a regular cycle of spending time in Richmond and Hancock going forward.

SUB-COMMITTEE REPORTS

• Policy Sub Committee- Two policy readings. Clark: First readings- under our agreement we’re do two readings before a policy becomes adopted.

K.Burdsall: 1)Revision of Policy JICFB- Bullying Prevention: written originally with the assumption that only students could bully each other but this change includes staff; and 2)Revision of Policy JKAA- Physical Restraint of Students: requirements changed as of Jan 1 and new policy aligns with that change.

S.Bannon: any questions, email Peter befor our next meeting because a second reading and will be voted on at next meeting. Policy  need to set a date- couple of agenda items.

• Building and Grounds Sub Committee- Have not met
• Superintendent’s Evaluation Sub Committee- Skip
• Technology Sub Committee- Have not met
• Finance Sub Committee- Have not met
• Regional Agreement Amendment Committee (RAAC)– Meets August 16 @ 6pm. Proposal voting will occur.

PERSONNEL REPORT

• Certified Appointments-Dillon: Almost totally full staffed with great people. Music department is still being discussed but are cautiously optimistic
  • Clark: Make note of the number of people, mostly our teachers, who are involved in our summer fellowship program. An outstanding program w/ teachers who give up part of their summer to commit to working on special projects and curriculum issues on their own time and for very little cost to the district. Primarily grant funded and it’s an outstanding program with many many people involved.

.Non-Certified Appointments-

• Resignation
• Extra-Curricular Appointments-

                                                                                            PERSONNEL REPORT

                                                                                                July 28, 2016

                         Name                                                     Position                                                           Fund             Salary/Stipend

                                                                                                                                                                   Source                Effective Date:

BUSINESS OPERATION-

S.Harrison:  Proposed foodservice reallocation- REPORT ATTACHED

Unless we’re going to increase our prices dramatically, we’ll continue to see this as a need in our community. The $50,000 is what was budgeted in the operating budget and then this is the additional amount above that is the deficit that’s in the food services revolving account at this point.

R.Dohoney moved to reallocate  $74,368.03 from the foodservice revolving fund to the general fund,       Seconded: W.Fields       Approved: Unanimously 

EDUCATION NEWS- None

OLD BUSINESS- None

NEW BUSINESS-

F.Clark make a proposal that Berkshire Hills Regional School District send a letter to the commissioner of elementary and secondary education with copies to the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, our representatives Ben Downing and Smitty  Pignatelli. The letter would request that the state of Massachusetts set the tuition rate by formula they come up with to be paid by school districts and school unions to other school districts and school unions for tuition students.       Seconded: W.Fields

Discussion:

F.Clark: Comes from idea that we need to deal with the things that we can control and try to change the things that we can’t control. This is outside of our control and this change would better serve us for a number of reasons. The state would use a formula to set the tuition that we would charge to school districts that have no school of their own, in our case it’s primarily Richmond and Farmington River. Many states, including our neighbors in New York State, have a formula where the state has a special rate. The State of Massachusetts already does it for charter schools and vocational education

I’m suggesting that they use the same formula from data that they already collect to establish that tuition level paid between districts. Advantages: 1) removes us from the negotiation point where we have to argue about paper clips or what’s included in the tuition. 2) based upon true cost as audited by the state for what it cost to deliver services. 3) calculated every year, based upon our actual annual costs and so would have a cost of living increase built in. 4) we battled last year in to get a 4% four percent raise from our partnering tuition schools before going into budget season. We had a 4.5% increase, losing 0.5% based upon that 4% battle.

Lastly, from this school district’s view, one way forward is to expand the size of the region to bring into our region some of these other school districts (ones that provide full services). No incentive for those districts to join us if they’re paying several thousand dollars less to be an independent. Joining us, they would be paying the same true costs and they’d have a voice and an ability to determine our school and our education. $2,000 to $4,000 more per student, per year than what able to negotiate on our own.

I think this is a problem mostly for rural areas because only very small towns where they either don’t belong to a region or don’t have their own school districts. Creates a level playing field.

W.Fields: Like idea because it takes the cut-throat out of tuition and makes our district look reasonable.

F.Clark: Clarify: motion is just to send a letter to DECI, elected representatives to Mass Association of School

S.Bannon Calls for a vote.

Approved: 6-3 (opposed: A.Potter, R.Dohoney, S.Bannon)

PUBLIC COMMENT- None

WRITTEN COMMUNICATION-

S.Bannon: Received a letter from the executive office of Commonwealth of Massachusetts, included in meeting packet. They obviously see differently about charter schools than we do:

“Thank you for sending the Berkshire Hills Regional School District School Committee April 14th resolution regarding the Massachusetts foundation budget review commission recommendations and charter schools. As you know, the recommendations of the foundation budget review commission were directed to the legislators’ joint commission on education and would require legislative action to move forward. Therefore, we wait for the legislators’ action before commenting on the recommendations for any particular course of action.

Additionally, I respectfully disagree on the resolution relative to charter schools. Governor Baker and I (letter from James Peyser, Secretary of Education) both believe that students and families deserve access to the highest quality educational options whether they find them in a district school or

charter school.

Thank you for your commitment to serving the students of the Berkshire Hills Regional School District.”

F.Clark: Comment: 3rd paragraph does not address the financing of charter schools which is the biggest problem with charters. Taking away from public at a higher rate than the school would be able to provide services or does provide service.

P.Dillon: Somebody tried to open a charter school in south county seven years ago people made a lot of noise and it didn’t happen. Maybe not the most popular view, but good schools are good schools and weak schools are weak schools and there’s some strong charter schools that do find work and there’s some typical public schools that do fine work and there’s some who do horrible work. There’s some charter schools that do horrible work. My issue i have around charter schools in Massachusetts is the funding issue and the rest is just governance. I’d like to see the funding thing resolved but I think schools should be high quality and high quality school should be applauded and praised and low quality school should be given support or shut down.

F.Clark: My problem in addition to the funding is with taking a critical mass of kids away from a public school district, being more selective and not open about the admission to that: a private Academy run under the public dollars.

F.Clark: Charter schools were promoted as doing experiential learning in different ways with the best ideas being enforced/reinforced and presumably brought into a broader program.

P.Dillon: M.Berle brought in a very talented ESL teacher from BART who did a lot of work with teachers and it was wonderfully successful. B.Doren and others went to BART and were part of the portfolio process also a part that we’re going to embrace.

W.Fields: 96% of all kids will go to public school. Public schools include charter schools.  Keep in mind that what we do here is really important.

A.Potter made motion to Adjourn,      Seconded: C.Shelton,      Approved: Unanimously

Meeting Adjourned at 8:18pm

The next meeting is scheduled for August 18, 2016 – Regular Meeting –Monument Valley Middle School

Submitted by:

Rebecca Burcher, Recorder

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Rebecca Burcher, Recorder

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School Committee Secretary